Pylons do not have to look like they used to, they do not have to solely be a technical object. To change this was the mission of Hans-Jochen Hilsberg, from Germany. He designed a star shaped pylon in order to address functional and aesthetic needs of pylons in a time of transformation.

The Red Dot Award committee honoured Mr. Hilsberg for his design concept ‘star pylon’ and rewarded him with the Red Dot Award: Best of the Best for highest design quality.

That designer pylons may overcome the lack of enthusiasm for grid expansions in the German population is stated by a post of RheinEnergieBlog: This article displays those pylons that were featured by the GRID EXPO project.

GRID EXPO was recently featured in Revolve-Magazine. In preparation for the EU Sustainable Energy Week (EUSEW 14) in Brussels a GRID EXPO online photo essay was put together with many different pylon designs that are part of the touring GRID EXPO. This full photo essay can be viewed here.

GRID EXPO displayed a model of the T-Pylon during the trade fair at the Renewable Energy Forum in Hannover from the 7th – 11th April 2014. The forum was arranged and hosted by the Agentur für Erneuerbare Energien (Agency for Renewable Energies). GRID EXPO’s presence was considered to be a valuable contribution and of great significance towards renewable energies overall.

In order to get a better insight additional photos and presentations from the forum can be seen here.

A first case of an actual construction of a recent pylon design – here the T-Pylon -, designed by Bystrup Architects Design and Engineering. The video shows the implementation of the design by National Grid in the UK.